Pat McAfee couldn’t open his show on Wednesday without acknowledging the 40,000-pound elephant in the room placed there by Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers, and McAfee by association, made headlines on Tuesday after Rodgers – in his weekly Pat McAfee Show appearance – joked that ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel would be among the names found on a soon-to-be-released flight log of individuals that traveled to a private island owned by Jeffrey Epstein where sexual exploitation of children took place.
Kimmel on Tuesday evening took to X, formerly Twitter, and responded to Rodgers, threatening him with a lawsuit if he continued to insinuate that Kimmel was associated with Epstein.
McAfee felt like Rodgers got carried away in his talking trash to Kimmel, who has taken his own shots at Rodgers on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“It’s tough. Whenever you’re free-wheeling and dealing in here, and you’re having conversations, they can certainly lead to some places that cause like international news and things like that,” McAfee said. “And whenever there’s accusations made about people, that can lead to lawsuits.”
He said he was speaking from experience, having dealt with a defamation lawsuit from Brett Favre after McAfee and others on his show made comments about Favre’s alleged involvement in a scheme that misused state welfare money in Mississippi.
McAfee added the unscripted and unorganized nature of his show presents a double-edged sword.
“There is just an opportunity to talk about damn near everything for three and a half hours,” he said. “And in doing so, the upside of that is some magic can come that you never knew was gonna come.”
“On the flip side, there can be some things that were certainly probably – we’re gonna have to hear from Aaron on that – meant to be shit talk/joke that can then become something that is obviously a very serious allegation that then leads to a massive overnight story,” McAfee continued.
Pat McAfee said he wasn’t put off by how Kimmel responded given the context.
“I can see exactly why Jimmy Kimmel felt the way he felt, especially with his position,” McAfee said. “But I think Aaron was just trying to talk shit. Now did it go too far? Jimmy Kimmel certainly said that was the case.”
“We obviously don’t like the fact that we’re associated with anything negative ever,” he added. “We’d like our show to be an uplifting one, a happy one, a fun one. But it’s because we talk shit and make light of everything, some things obviously people get very pissed off about especially when they’re that serious of allegations. So we apologize for being a part of it.”
McAfee finished by expressing his desire for Rodgers and Kimmel to squash their beef amicably.
“Hopefully those two will just be able to settle this,” he said. “Not court wise but be able to chit-chat and move along.”
